Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 05:36:10 -0600 (MDT) From: John Barentine Subject: 3.5m Night Log 20030611 Apache Point Observatory 3.5m Telescope Night Log Wednesday, June 11, 2003 ACTUAL ASTRONOMER OBSERVER(S) INSTRUMENT START FINISH -------------------------------------------------------------------- B.Gillespie J.Barentine NA2Gdr 20:40 23:10 DIS 23:15 00:25 Echelle 00:30 01:45 GRIM 01:55 04:50 INST SCHEDULED WEATH EQUIP OBS DAY NOTUSED I/RO/DN START FINISH D B D B D B USE D B -------------------------------------------------------------------- EN01/0 21:15 04:51 0 0 0 0 0.6 7.0 0 0 0 note: scheduled times listed include instrument change time ------------- ACTIVITY LOG -------------- Observing Specialist: J.Barentine Opened to cool at 20:20. Started a 10x10 pointing model at 20:50. The pointing model process seemed to lose catalog stars fairly frequently and toward the end, the NA2 guider images dropped counts in a strip on the left side of the image. A restart of the guider and its computer did not solve the problem; it turned out to be an odd scattered light problem solved when I pointed the telescope toward the east (away from the Moon). The pointing model fit radius was 48 seconds. I saved the information and made hardcopies but did not implement the model. Russet suggested that the bad fit was the result of the way certain parameters were set in the setup for the model, so we will try again tomorrow night. So... moving on to DIS throughput measurements. Here's a log of images in /export/images/: Image Type Exp(s) Note ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20030612.0001-5 Bias 0 6 Flat, BrtQtz 12 weak signal 7-11 Flats,BrtQtz 30 12 He 60 13 Ne 30 14 Ar 90 15 object 180 PG1708+602, slitless 16 object 360 PG1708+602, 1.5" slit 17 object 180 PG1708+602, slitless After this I switched over to echelle to check the slitviewer, shift+click under the new TCC, etc. Then on to GRIM to check orientations of instrument offsets made in Remark, the MC and the TCC. With the last 45 minutes of the night I tried to get some JHK imagery for publicity picture purposes; just as I attempted to start up the square.tcl dither script, the "connection died unexpectedly" to the MC and Remark similarly reported that the connection had been "lost". From then on when I tried starting a new mcnode I got the following: localhost 6023 1 1 0 0 0 0 mcnode> hostname: localhost address: 127.0.0.1 Naturally, all the focus information I had for the night was being logged in nfocus. In hopes of recovering it, I did not attempt to restart the MC. I could also not reconnect to Remark. The TCC was still accepting commands, so at that point I slewed to the park position with a track mount. Another note... around 03:00 the wind died and shifted to a more northerly direction than earlier in the night, and the dust came up until it crossed the closure threshold a short while before I closed. When I went upstairs to close, from the outside catwalk I noticed the distinct smell of burning... something. It was a burning wood/grass kind of smell, which was also noticeable outside the ops building at ground level, although not as strong. I hope this doesn't portend something bad. ------- FAILURE LOG ------- PROG INST FAILURE MODE TIME (SEGDFVO) TI/SHU START FINISH DESCRIPTION ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- FOCUS LOG --------------- Air/Truss Wind Time Instrument Focus Az El Temp-C Dir MPH filt FWHM --------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------- WEATHER LOG ---------------- Wind Precip.or Time Temp F Dewp F MPH Direction Dust Sky Conditions ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:01 66 20 14 268 (W) 538 Clear none 17:01 63 18 17 263 (W) 541 Clear none 18:01 62 17 25 252 (WSW) 741 Clear none 19:01 61 15 18 268 (W) 857 Clear none 20:01 58 14 16 256 (WSW) 420 Clear none 21:01 56 12 17 263 (W) 659 Clear none 22:01 56 9 17 263 (W) 401 Clear none 23:01 55 8 16 270 (W) 328 Clear none 00:01 55 7 21 269 (W) 365 Clear none 01:01 54 8 11 273 (W) 437 Clear none 02:01 53 9 8 290 (WNW) 424 Clear none 03:01 53 12 6 286 (WNW) 687 Clear none 04:01 51 11 8 318 (NW) 952 Clear none 05:01 51 13 2 336 (NNW) 1988 Clear none Note: the wind was coming from the azimuth listed. The convention used is north=0 degrees, east=90 degrees. The dust count is particles > 1u per 0.1 cubic feet. TELESCOPE STATUS Primary, secondary, and tertiary mirrors in place and collimated. Primary support system operational. Mirror ventilation system in place. Telescope drives operational. Current Remark version: 2.85b Current guide software version: GIm Ctrlv4.1b4 Current TCC version: 2.6.8 Current TUI version: 0.66